Home

Declaration of Accountability

When governments cease to serve the will of the people and instead serve the interests of powerful elites, unaccountable to the rule of law, it is incumbent upon citizens of the world to withdraw support from these institutions and replace them with legitimate governments of, by, and for the people.

Presented in this Declaration of Accountability is a Bill of Grievances detailing the unlawful acts of some of the most powerful governments in the world. This is a call to the people of these countries and citizens of the world to hold accountable those responsible for their criminal acts. It is also a call for the restoration of the rule of law through all legal means and, if necessary, for an independent internationally comprised tribunal. As so eloquently expressed by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson, the chief prosecutor of the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials following World War II:

If certain acts and violations of treaties are crimes, they are crimes whether the United States does them or whether Germany does them. We are not prepared to lay down a rule of criminal conduct against others which we would not be willing to have invoked against us.

In short, all nations, vanquished or victors, and all persons, powerful or humble, are subject to the rule of law without exception.

Bill of Grievances

Governments have perpetrated the following willful and unconscionable acts on behalf of the special interests of the few at the expense of the people they are beholden to represent:

• They have turned over control of sovereign monetary systems to private banks that critically imperil the people’s welfare and the world economy;

• They have used the International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organization, the World Bank, and the Bank for International Settlements to impose their economic and political agendas on nations worldwide, effectively subjecting them to economic warfare and relegating them to the status of modern-day colonies;

• They have engaged in resource wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere under false pretenses (“weapons of mass destruction,” etc.), resulting in massive loss of life and the wholesale destruction of lands and local economies;

• They have caused the displacement of millions of individuals and families from their native lands due to imperial wars, exploitation, and trade agreements (such as NAFTA), which has resulted in the continuation of victimization of these political, economic, and environmental refugees in the countries to which they fled;

• They have eliminated job opportunities, social services, and labor protections for the people while enhancing the fortunes of banks and corporations;

• They have purposefully undermined free and fair elections through voter registration irregularities, rigged voting machines, and in the U.S., high-court decisions that overrule the electorate and endorse unlimited corporate campaign financing and electoral control;

• They have passed laws inimical to the health and welfare of the planet, subjecting all living beings to oil spills, chemical poisoning and pollution, deadly radiation, genetic manipulation and other threats, as well as promoting wars for profit, the single greatest cause of environmental degradation and human illness;

• They have put the planet and its people at further risk by permitting strip-mining of the land, gouging of the ocean floor, emission of greenhouse gases, privatization of drinking water resources for profit, and the destruction of indigenous lands;

• They have perpetrated “false flag events”—acts of violence and criminal negligence (including many connected with 9/11), which are then blamed on targeted groups or countries—to mobilize support for wars (e.g., Iraq, Afghanistan) and restrict liberties (e.g., the U.S. Patriot Act);

• They have routinely used torture—a criminal act under the Geneva Convention, UN Convention against Torture, and the U.S. War Crimes Act—to extract false confessions from prisoners for the purpose of linking them to alleged terrorist plans and to create further pretexts for war;

• They have engaged in extraordinary renditions (kidnapping) of citizens from various sovereign countries and delivered them to CIA “black sites” for torture—all in the name of the so-called “War on Terror”;

• They have enacted laws in secrecy that later have been revealed to concentrate power in the hands of a few, abridging constitutional checks and balances;

• They have engaged in secret, illegal spying on innocent people, domestic and foreign, using private telecommunication companies later shielded from complicity in warrantless wiretapping and electronic eavesdropping; and

• They have collaborated with corporate media to mislead and misinform the people and to suppress informed debate, thereby crippling democracy.

To redress the grievances in this Bill, we the undersigned world citizens affirm the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted unanimously in 1948 by the United Nations General Assembly, which declares that “it is essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse as a last resort to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule of law.”

Therefore, we call upon organizations and peoples of all nations to join us in signing this declaration and in taking all possible legal actions to resolve the crimes described herein, including an international tribunal and initiatives suitable to each country. (An elaboration of these grievances, their documentation, and suggested remedies can be found at Problems and Proposed Solutions.)

John B. Cobb, Jr. – American United Methodist theologian, contributor to the development of process theology, and the integration of Alfred North Whitehead’s metaphysics into Christianity, and its application to issues of social justice.

Bev Collins – Former president of the Canadian Action Party. (The Canadian Action Party (CAP) (French: Parti action canadienne [PAC]) is a Canadian federal political party founded in 1997.

David Ray Griffin – Professor emeritus at Claremont School of
Theology; author of more than 30 books on philosophy, theology, religion, science, and September 11, 2001; co-director of The Center for Process Studies; formerly editor of the SUNY series in Constructive Postmodern Thought.